Puddle of Blood
by Fardale
Summary: There's a girl who lives in the Forest. A girl who haunts Draco's thoughts and dreams and who wants to make him so much more then he was ever meant to be...


Chapter One: A Voice in the Dark  
  
He was fuming mad. Once again, Potter had shown up and of course, Potter had come out on top. Why was life so unfair to him? Potter thought he knew misery, well he didn't. Now he paced back and forth in front of the Forbidden Forest. He'd sent Crabbe and Goyle back to the Slytherin common room a long time ago. Of course, they obeyed his every word without really caring what he had them do, so long as he had them do it.  
  
He smiled smugly at the thought of the power he had over the two. He was just a first year, and already he had cronies. His father hadn't even done that well. Now that he thought of it, it wasn't so bad that Potter had won. Of courses Potter had won. He was the favorite. So what, the Dark Lord hadn't killed him, but that didn't mean he was suddenly Draco's equal...at least not in the eyes of his side of the wizarding world.  
  
"That's right Potter! You'll never amount to half of what I'll turn out to be! You just wait and see!" he shouted into the Forbidden Forest.  
  
"Are you sure about that?" a woman's voice echoed around him. Or did it echo in him? For some reason Draco could not decide if the voice was corporeal or a figment of his own overly zealous imagination. Curious, he stared into the forest, but could see nothing through the dark depths.  
  
"I'm not in your head boy, make no mistake about that." The voice echoed again, and this time it was more...real, more human.  
  
"Who's there?" he demanded angrily. This interference upon his private thoughts had ruined all chanced of him being in a good mood for the rest of the night.  
  
"I can't tell you my name. It won't do good for you to go off running your mouth now."  
  
"What business do you have here?" he scowled, completely unsatisfied with the so far invisible woman's answers.  
  
"You're my business here." As she talked her voice gradually became ghostly again.  
  
"What—oh never mind." He turned his back on the Forest and headed towards the castle.  
  
"I wouldn't be so quick to leave, Draco." He paused in mid-step at the sound of his name.  
  
"All right, who are you?" he turned back to the Forest angrily. No answer came in the form of a voice, but rather a cautious tap on his left shoulder. He looked to the left and there was no one there, and then started as the woman appeared at his right.  
  
"Don't do that!" he grunted. A shadow of a smile hovered around the woman's full lips, but her expression, especially the eyes, those brilliant eyes, remained serious, almost sorrowful.  
  
"Tell me, Draco. Did you mean what you said regarding Harry Potter?" she pressed her initial question.  
  
"Well, of course!" he said indignantly. Why did she, whoever she was, even have to ask that? She frowned.  
  
"I see...go on to your common room Draco, before you get in trouble for being out after hours." She glanced to the sky, which was indeed dark. She administered a swift kiss onto his cheek and disappeared. Where, he couldn't tell...into the Forest maybe? Surely that was where she came from? But she moved so fast, inhumanly fast. There was no way to be sure...  
  
Draco kept his silence about the raven-haired mystery (at least he pictured her with raven black hair, he really had no clue what she really looked like) for five years. By the time he was a sixth year he barely even remembered that one lonely, anger-filled night. After all, how was it different then any other night? But though he rarely thought of her anymore, that one night when she'd appeared to him stood out distinctly in his mind whenever the subject came up in his thoughts. She was what made that night different from all the others.  
  
Suddenly he snapped out of his thoughts. Nothing had brought him out of his daze but his own willingness to forget that night.  
  
"Draco...don't forget me..." he flinched. No one else appeared to hear her haunting voice.  
  
"Anythin' er...wrong, wit' you, Mr. Malfoy?" Hagrid inquired uncertainly at the expression of terror on Draco's face. Draco deliberately fixed on his usual sneer.  
  
"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?" the giant shrugged and returned to his lesson.  
  
"Draco..." he spared one glance for the Forest before returning half- heartedly to the lesson at hand. He forced himself not to think about it all day for what good it did. The woman even haunted his dreams. He woke in a sweat, shouting out something he couldn't understand. Crabbe grunted in his sleep, Goyle turned over.  
  
He gulped and disentangled his legs from the sheets. His bed was a complete mess; most of his covers now resided on the floor, as well as one of his two pillows. The stale air hit him, cooling his body instantly and sending a chill down his back. Still in his sleeping clothes he wrapped a cloak around himself and snuck, quietly as possible, out of the boys dormitory.  
  
"Draco..." the voice entered his mind the second he stepped through the castle doors. It was an eerie moonless night. A shiver ran down his spine, but he would not be dissuaded from putting an end to this once and for all. He wrapped the cloak (Who's cloak was it anyways?) tighter around his lithe form and set off barefoot across the wet grass. The Forbidden Forest seemed to be an eternity away from him. He broke into a dead run, straight for the Forbidden Forest, and right passed Hagrid's hut, where Fang broke into a symphony of loud, alerting barks, but Draco never slowed. Not until he reached the first tree of the Forest did he stop to look back.  
  
A light appeared in Hagrid's window and Fang ceased his barking. Draco plastered himself against a tree as the shadow of Hagrid passed across the lighted window. He was sure he would be caught. What on Earth would his father say?  
  
"Don't worry about that Draco. You'll never be found here if you stay with Me." sweet breath tingled his ear. The woman, or rather the girl, hadn't aged at all. She still looked to be close to his own sixteen years, though five years had passed since last he'd seen her. He stood there speechless. She stood right before him, pushing him up against the trunk of a tree with her lips hovering dangerously close to his ear. He turned his face into her hair, just to see...yes, it was just as black as he'd imagined it.  
  
Quite suddenly, she turned with inhuman speed to Hagrid's hut. The door was open and Hagrid was emerging, lumbering tiredly.  
  
"Come on." She ran a careless hand through Draco's platinum blonde hair before grabbing him by the collar and dragging him behind her into the Forest.  
  
"If Hagrid thinks something's up, he'll follow us in here." He pointed out with distaste clear in his voice.  
  
"He won't find you Draco. He's never come so deep into the Forest as to find me." Draco didn't like the sound of that. He stopped in his tracks, and though she still held a decent grip on his collar, she stopped with him and even turned to face him as he spoke.  
  
"What are you?" he sneered. The things his Father would say if he could but see his son now. Letting a woman drag him down into the Forbidden Forest, a muggle dressed woman, mind you. No Malfoy was so easily seduced as this. To his dismay, she seemed not to mind the loathing in his voice at all.  
  
"I'm something you might never understand. I live. That is all you need to know." She released his collar and turned away from him.  
  
"Are you going to follow or not, Malfoy?" she drawled with a casual glance over her shoulder. She didn't wait for him to follow, just continued walking, careful to avoid tree roots that tried to obstruct her path. He didn't have much of a choice but to follow her into the depths of the Forest.  
  
"What do you want with me? Are you a follower of the Dark Lord?" he asked, masking his fear perfectly.  
  
"Don't fear, Draco." He jumped. How could she have sensed that? "You should have already guessed that I am beyond human. I can sense your every feeling, whether you wish me too, or not." He gulped.  
  
"Can you read my thoughts as well?" he fought to keep the sarcasm in his voice, but she took the question seriously.  
  
"Of course not. And even if I could, I wouldn't invade anyone's mind like that. Your thoughts are your own and no one else's. As to your earlier question...No, I don't follow Voldemort. You are here, because I chose you." The mysterious girl made no move to elaborate further.  
  
"We're here." She stopped on the edge of a clearing. In the middle lay a pond of gleaming silver water...no, not water. He recognized that glittering substance. Unicorn Blood. Draco stared into it, curiosity gleaming in his eyes.  
  
"Don't think for one second that I don't know what this is." He turned to her with glee in his eyes. He had something on her. If she ever did anything to disrupt the life his Father had so carefully planned for him, he knew how to take care of her.  
  
"I'm glad you know." Draco's smile faltered.  
  
"W-what do you mean?" he stuttered, taking a faulty step backwards.  
  
"I mean, that any sixth year at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry should be able to identify Unicorn Blood when they see it, especially you. After your little escapade in here five years ago I'd be horribly disappointed if the memory of this beautiful essence had left you."  
  
"How do you know about that?" he asked reproachfully.  
  
"I watch, Draco. I pay attention to what goes on in my Forest." She stood now with her back to the pond, watching his every move, and he was sure that she was reading his every thought no matter what she might say to the contrary. A small smile teased the corners of her lips. Draco's eyes darted back and forth between the silver pond and the Forest Guardian's face. He caught her eyes and they were, if at all possible, an even more brilliant ice blue then they had been five years ago. They shone so brightly they cast in eerie blue glow over her white skin.  
  
"Why...How...What happened to make that pond there?" he finally decided upon that last question. She shrugged.  
  
"It's simple really. A long, long, time ago before the world you know existed the people that lived here were just so powerful they didn't need to use wands or ridiculous words to cast their spells. You think you're a pureblood Draco, but not even the founder of your own house was as much a pureblood as I." Draco snorted in disbelief. "Believe me or not," she continued, "It is true. And you, Draco, might have the chance to taste that power." This proposition, if nothing else, intrigued him.  
  
"I don't believe you." He stated defiantly.  
  
"It doesn't matter if you believe me or not at this point. Whether you truly believe it or not the possibility that you could become the strongest sorcerer in millennia will always nag at the back of your brain." She warned.  
  
"Why would you chose me if you don't serve the Dark Lord? I assume, as you live in his Forest, that you live under Dumbledore." Draco taunted. Her expression became suddenly scary, her brilliant shining eyes narrowed.  
  
"This is my Forest. I've been living here since before Dumbledore was ever born. I serve no one, but if I had to choose between the two Dumbledore would be my choice. But I'm getting off topic. My people sacrificed the Unicorns to the Gods, the Gods whom we believed were the bringers of our magic. We were favored in their eyes, for we had powers no other tribe possessed. You would call them muggles. I call them mortal. The blood never faded from this place, and so long as it shines, so will I." Again Draco glanced to the pool, memories of Voldemort filling his mind. And, oh God, his own father was going to sell him into the service of that despicable thing! Bile rose in his throat at the memory of a silver substance dripping down the Dark Lord's chin. He swallowed it, and with it his pride.  
  
"You must have Potter in on this. Anything involving Dumbledore involves Potter as well. He's the favorite." Draco crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. He would not be had. No matter what, he would not.  
  
"No, Draco. Dumbledore isn't involved with this. He's too great a sorcerer to have overlooked my presence...I've spoken with him on many occasions. Delightful man, really...but that isn't the point. He won't know about this, and he won't know about the roots of the wizarding world today. But neither will your Father. You hear me? If you want this power Voldemort shall never know. No Death Eater shall ever know. No one but you and I shall ever know about this until you've gained your full power," she warned. Her eyes darkened maliciously and it was fear of her that made him promise not to tell a soul. He'd never thought he'd meet someone he could fear more then his abusive father, but here stood such a being before him.  
  
"I won't tell anyone, but I haven't accepted yet either. Tell me what you plan to use me for." He said, feeling smart. He knew there was a catch in here somewhere.  
  
"In the days to come, Voldemort will gain in power. I won't reveal more of the future to you then that."  
  
"You've been associating with too many Centaurs." He grumbled under his breath. She let out a soft, quiet chuckle.  
  
"Maybe, but they know what's best better then you or even me. There are stages to your gaining power. You'll go through them all in the years to come." She looked up to the sky.  
  
"You'd best get back to your dormitory soon, Draco. The sun will soon rise. Take a drink of this before you come back here." She pressed a vial filled with a swirling black liquid.  
  
"What is this?" he questioned her suspiciously with eyebrows raised.  
  
"It's a draught of the blood of the Ancient Gods. It will infuse you with the first of the power you are to gain, and it's only a small fraction of power mind you, nothing spectacular. It won't do to have you suddenly outdoing every student in the school. You will be able to find your way back here on your own after drinking this. Now go!" she pushed him out of the clearing urgently. He looked back and she was gone.  
  
"Don't tell a soul..." her voice floated through his mind. He grasped the vial in his hand and, careful to avoid Hagrid's hut, he made his way back to the Slytherin Common Room. 


End file.
